THE ASHES

Sydney: Australian coach Darren Lehmann says he is excited by the prospect of facing England for the Ashes again next year and played down the seconddivision county opposition dished up for warmup games.
The England and Wales Cricket Board on Monday announced the schedule for the 2015 Ashes against their old...

England's bid to regain the Ashes next year will begin with the first Test at Cardiff's Sophia Gardens, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced on Monday.
Cardiff, which also hosted the Ashes opener in 2009, will get the fiveTest series underway from July 812 with matches following at Lord's,...

Sydney: Just how an England team that arrived in Perth last October confident of winning a fourth straight Ashes series ended up capitulating 50 will be subject of much soulsearching over the next few months.
The dispiriting defeat at the hands of an Australia team, which even their most ardent supporters...

Melbourne: Colourful England batsman Kevin Pietersen rebuffed suggestions on Tuesday that he might be next to quit after Graeme Swann's shock exit and expressed "less than zero" interest in the spinner's retirement saga.
Pietersen, who notched his 100th Test during this Ashes series in Brisbane, also brushed off questions about the...

Perth: Michael Clarke's Australians regained the Ashes just four months after the last series defeat in England by completing a third comprehensive Test victory on home soil.
Resuming at 251 for 5 on the last day of the third Test, England lost only one wicket in Tuesday's morning session but Nathan...

Perth: Matt Prior is urging his England teammates to dispense with the survival instinct and take the fight up to Mitchell Johnson, or forget about retaining the Ashes.
Johnson has taken 17 wickets already in Australia's first two victories, peppering the English batsmen with shortpitch bowling at express pace. Making matters...

Adelaide: Mitchell Johnson tormented England by taking seven wickets with some fearsome fast bowling on Saturday and Australia's batsmen compounded the pressure by extending the lead to 530 runs with two days remaining in the second Ashes Test.
It was a hectic third day at the Adelaide Oval, with 12 wickets...

Adelaide: England captain Alastair Cook said on Wednesday it was important to give Jonathan Trott time and space to recover from the stress illness that forced him out of the Ashes series in Australia.
Trott left the tour after he twice fell cheaply to Mitchell Johnson in England's heavy 381run loss...

Adelaide: Cricket Australia apologised on Thursday after being criticised on social media for a clumsy joke involving England spinner Monty Panesar posted on Twitter during the opening day of the second Ashes Test.
A picture of four men wearing turbans posing in a corridor was posted on the governing body's Twitter...

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TOSS: Australia won the toss and Michael Clarke decided to bat.
TEAM NEWS: Australia retained the same XI. Ben Stokes makes his debut for England, with the visitors also bringing in Monty Panesar to partner offspinner Graeme Swann.
Playing XI:
England: Alastair Cook...

Australia have put fast bowlers Doug Bollinger and Nathan CoulterNile on standby for next week's third Ashes Test against England in Perth should any of the current pacemen break down during the second Test in Adelaide, starting on Thursday.
The Adelaide Oval's dropin pitch is expected to favour batsmen and provide...

Australia paceman James Pattinson will make a tentative return to competitive cricket when he lines up for Melbourne club Dandenong this weekend, raising his hopes of taking part in the Ashes after being sidelined with a back injury.
"We can confirm he is returning as a batsman only at this stage....

Melbourne: Australia will leave no stone unturned to find ways of unsettling England during the Ashes, even if it involves raising the sensitive issue of Jonathan Trott's troubles out on the field.
England's number three batsman left the tour this week to deal with a stressrelated illness after failing twice with...

Alice Springs, Australia: England pace bowler Stuart Broad says his side lost the first Ashes Test to Australia after a short "bit of madness" and plans to play tougher in the second Test beginning December 5 in Adelaide.
England lost the first Test by 381 runs in four days and failed...

Australia coach Darren Lehmann has no plans to meet Andy Flower to defuse any lingering tension from the spiteful first Test in Brisbane and said the England team director needed to worry about his own players rather than their opponents.
Australia thrashed the tourists by 381 runs at the Gabba but...

Having gone through a similar ordeal, former England paceman Steve Harmison would prefer to see troubled batsman Jonathan Trott quit cricket and be happy rather than play and suffer.
A day after England were thrashed in the first Ashes Test against Australia by 381 runs, Trott walked out of the squad...

Brisbane: England batsman Jonathan Trott has left the team's Ashes tour of Australia with a stressrelated illness, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Monday. "Trott will take a break from cricket for the foreseeable future and will take no further part in the tour," the ECB said...

Former Asheswinning captain Michael Vaughan fears England's drubbing at the hands of Australia in the first Test in Brisbane could have inflicted longterm damage. Two woeful battling displays and ferocious bowling by Australian paceman Mitchell Johnson condemned England to a 381run defeat in four days.
It was England's second worst Ashes...

Brisbane: After hitting the England bowlers all around the Gabba compiling his first Ashes century, David Warner saved a few shots at the opposition for after stumps.
"Our bowlers are bowling fast at the moment. England are on the back foot," he said in a provocative poststumps news conference on Saturday....

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Day 1 Roundup: Stuart Broad took five wickets to put England in charge on the first day of the first Ashes Test despite a battling Australian rearguard that kept the hosts alive at 273 for 8...

England were relieved to have wicketkeeper Matt Prior back fit as hosts Australia began their bid to reclaim the Ashes by opting to bat first in the opening Test at Brisbane.
George Bailey makes his Test debut for Australia while offspinner Nathan Lyon has edged James Faulkner to retain his place...

Brisbane: Michael Clarke is giving nothing away on the eve of the Ashes. Not his starting XI, not comparisons between this and the previous series, not praise nor predictions, not even observations on England.
Outwardly, the captaincy style harks back to another era, back in the mid1980s when Australia was struggling...

Brisbane: The Ashes contest must be imminent. The local newspaper featured a frontpage photo of Kevin Pietersen on Monday, describing the England batsman as the "walking ego of world cricket."
That was published only hours after the national broadcaster aired the latest in a long line of Australian TV retrospectives of...

Sydney: Opener Aaron Finch hit 59 runs from 60 balls as the Cricket Australia Invitational XI reached 153 for 4 on Friday for a lead of 39 runs over England heading into the last day of the visitors' final match before the start of next Thursday's first Ashes Test at...

Melbourne: Alastair Cook's captaincy is "negative" and "boring", and could cost England the Ashes if the hosts lift their game, according to former Australia spinner Shane Warne.
Cook led England to an emphatic 30 victory in the first of backtoback Ashes this year and is expected to lead the tourists to...

Australia have recalled paceman Mitchell Johnson from the tour of India to help him prepare for his Ashes selection, the country's cricket board said on Thursday.
The leftarm pace bowler, who turns 32 on Saturday, will miss the seventh and final onedayer against India after his impressive performance on the subcontinent's...

England made a poor start to their Australia tour on Thursday with their fancied bowling attack forced to toil by a secondstring Western Australia Chairman's XI at Perth.
With most of their frontline players busy on Sheffield Shield duty, the local team was expected to roll over for the tourists but...

London: Australia's batsmen could be fed a diet of bouncers after England named Stuart Broad, Steven Finn, Chris Tremlett and Boyd Rankin in their Ashes squad on Monday, said former Test player Nasser Hussain. The tall quartet of pacemen are all capable of bowling at speeds in excess of 90mph...

England defended their approach to cricket after Australia coach Darren Lehmann said on Monday they were a "dour side".
Although England completed a thirdstraight Ashes Test series win at home to Australia last month by taking a fivematch series 30, they were criticised for an excessively defensive approach with both bat...